From Mythical Norm to Mythically Unique: Water as a Medium for Evolution

• In Event: Futures Real and Imagined

Description for Program

Dr. R. Nicole Smith, University of Memphis

Societal constructs designed and maintained by members of a dominant culture work to create finite roles for individuals that support cultural, political, and economic infrastructures. These roles often hamper an individual’s ability to evolve into their true selves - particularly if they are part of a subordinate group. Speculative fiction and critical perspectives inspired - in part - by speculative fiction such as Afrofuturism, offer opportunities for individuals and communities to consider different paradigms for evolution outside of the dominant culture.

For instance, in her 2020 text Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, Alexis Pauline Gumbs invites readers to consider a different model of remembrance and collectivism inspired by water and marine mammals that could be interpreted as an opportunity to support individuals’ desire to evolve and transform on their own terms. Further consideration of this model invites people to self-actualize and discover new ways to thrive that figuratively embody the mythic and scientific properties of water and water-based creatures. As a result, people gain awareness and the tools to respond to shifting environments, needs, and desires rather than responding to constructed societal roles that are often constrained and ill-fitting.

Using Gumbs’s text as a critical framework, this paper will explore the efficacy of creating the conditions for self-actualization based on Black feminist and aquatic premises by examining how the water-based, mythical creature protagonists in Bethany Morrow’s A Song Below Water (2020) and Rivers Solomon, et al’s The Deep (2019) find their own voices and enrich their community by recognizing and embracing their inability to adhere to societal expectations.

Author

• R. Nicole Smith